


A Child in a Mask

by Notsohappycamper



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Angst, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Mental Pen Pals, Touch-Starved, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-02-27 14:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13250028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Notsohappycamper/pseuds/Notsohappycamper
Summary: Moments when, through the Force, they are not alone.





	1. Eventually

The juts and snags of her uneven stone cot are stabbing into her spine when he calls. Morning sunlight filters through the hut's tiny windows, which Rey would find beautiful if it wasn't highlighting the black curls of Kylo Ren's hair.

To think of him as "calling" is a misinterpretation. He more appears without warning in both voice and body, as clear as the dark gray stone above her, but there's something simple and grounding to think of it as "calling". It's less of an unknown.

She can think whatever she wants; it doesn't change the fact that, even when she blinks, she can't escape the sight of him. This used to frighten her, make her feel trapped and violated, but this isn't their first time or their second. And now she's realizing she's not the only one who sees more than darkness when she closes her eyes.

They lie and sit and breathe for a while, hushed and muted. Rey knows he's sitting; she can see him in a chair on the Dreadnought, shoulders slouched, mask off, hair perpetually messy. Where his expression isn't blank, it's guarded, and where it isn't guarded, it's far beyond reach. His mask has been absent for some time, now that she thinks about it. Since well before the forest. She likes him more without it.

 _"Me too,"_ he whispers.

She sucks in a breath at the deep sound of him, like ocean waves in a conch shell, and closes her eyes. His voice reverberates through her brain, and she hates it. It's easy to ignore someone in person, but like this, not so much.

"Where is it? Your mask."

_"I broke it."_

She didn't expect any different, but the familiar restlessness and aggression still tenses her muscles. That same childish anger she faced with a saber while he yelled out his suffering and pounded on his wound, dripping blood into the snow. That same anger that shoved a saber through his father's gut.

"Why?"

_"Why do you like me without it?"_

Rey steels her face and tries to mask her discomfort. He stares back, unflinching.

"Cowards hide behind masks, you know," she spits, venomous. "Darth Vader hid behind a mask."

It's a low blow, but it gets Kylo to finally move. The chair's black armrests creak under his clenched hands as he leans forward. Rey gets an itch to apologize, but doesn't.

 _"Where are you?"_ he whispers. _"Tell me."_ It's a poorly disguised threat, though poor on purpose. He wants her to feel his violence and blood-lust. What he doesn't know is that's all she  _can_ feel from him, under the bed of deep-seated pain. Under the layer of harrowing darkness.

"You know you don't need that mask."

He'd never admit it, but the conflict in him would. His father said something similar right before he died.

_"Tell me where you are."_

"Make me."

If she were before him, really before him, he  _would_ lift a hand and make her, but Kylo has no leverage here. Not any more than she has. He can't resort to using the Force and bending her to his will. He seems to realize this, because he leans back in his chair and for a while just stares. Rey closes her eyes again and watches back through the darkness.

Any person with their wits about them might call her crazy, or reckless, or just plain stupid for drifting back to sleep under the watchful glare of Kylo Ren, the murderer and monster of the First Order, but his breathing is soft and rhythmic. It's nice, even comforting. In this moment at least, it's all that she hears and all that she wants to.

She sees Ben again, but this time everything's fuzzy. Different. He's standing in the Millennium Falcon beside her, maskless and bleeding from his side onto the floor while mercilessly punching at his own wound. Rey isn't sure if he's trying to stop it, make it worse, or just make sure he feels the pain.

His father lies at their feet.

Ben's blood splatters when hit, drips onto Han's face, and stains it red. More blood starts to bloom from another wound right over his heart, soaking through his black uniform and rolling down in fat drops. Rey grabs his hand to stop him from beating at that one, too. Their fingers entwine as they look upon Han's dead body, flecked with his own son's blood, and it's a haunting sight, so Rey squeezes Ben's hand and shuts her eyes as tight as possible.

She opens them to a steady voice minutes, maybe hours later - she isn't sure, but all she knows is that Luke hasn't hammered on the front door yet so it couldn't have been too long. Kylo Ren is talking in a different area of the Dreadnought to someone she can't see, striding down a corridor with his fists clenched at his sides.

"What... Has this been happening the whole time?" Rey mumbles in confusion, disgust, and curiosity, sitting up on the stone cot and rubbing at her eyes. "The whole time I was asleep...?"

 _"Yes. If they're that low on fuel, it should only be a matter of time,"_ Kylo says, but not to her. He's continuing his conversation, offering her no more acknowledgement than a short pause before he speaks. He has a hard, stern expression and a powerful gait as he walks.

"Did... Did you watch me sleep?!"

A verbal response from him is unattainable, but the last thing Rey sees before their link severs is a nod. She spends all day wondering whether it was meant for her or the person he was physically conversing with, and whether he, too, saw the images of her dream.

*

Sometimes Rey wants to take a dive from the high rocks into the ocean and let the waves carry her off. When she tells Ben this, he says he sometimes thinks about exiting his TIE Silencer out among the stars and floating through empty space. He knows he'll die in seconds, but he's curious where the universe would take him.

Rey wonders if she floats through the sea on this planet while he floats through space above her, would they, even if it's just their corpses, meet eventually somewhere in the middle. Ben says eventually.

Her hand is bloody from dropping her lightsaber during training. Luke had ranted and raved, conjuring vivid descriptions of how she could've lost a hand or a limb. She stresses that she could've, but she didn't. Those rash excuses roll off of him like water off a porg though, and with a cynical shake of his head - it's always cynical, everything with him is - he confiscates her saber and dismisses her for the day. It doesn't stop her from trailing him, holding her bleeding palm and trekking across the island and back under his shadow while he gathers their dinner.

In her pack are torn pieces of cloth she uses as bandages and travel pads if it's that time of the month. They're easy to wash out and easy to reuse. Women back on Jakku use them because it's cheap and even orphans, even homeless girls have access to strips of cloth.

While Luke is grilling a fish with too many eyes, she sits by the low shoreline and uses one to wash and bind her hand, reminded of Jakku. The ocean seems to stretch forever, crashing waves ripped straight from her childhood dreams.

_"Why doesn't it ever show you with him? Why only you?"_

It's Ben. It increasingly is these days, though only when she's alone. His voice is rushed and charged, almost jealous. She tells him so, and he falls silent, shaking, eyes flitting down to her hand.

_"Did he do that?"_

"No, you psychopath. I did it myself. Leave."

_"How?"_

"I dropped my lightsaber."

_"No, how do you expect me to leave?"_

Based on where Rey is facing, Ben appears to be standing out over the rolling waves. Her eyes drink him in, ocean water washing over his boots, setting sunlight making all the black gleam. He's breathing hard, jaw clenched, eyes burning, lips trembling. She wonders what he was thinking about or what he saw to make him so undone.

"You're standing on water. For me."

He looks down and lifts a foot, like he'll be able to see it dripping from his boot in the Supremacy. Up in space, he does, and water forms a puddle on the metal floor beneath him, but Rey doesn't know that. She just thinks the movement is silly and endearing and smiles before she can stop herself.

 _"You're in the corner of my room for me,"_ Ben replies, lowering his foot. _"Crouched in the corner. Cowering there, looking up, and holding your wound."_

Rey imagines being in his private quarters on the Dreadnought, surrounded by the hatred of the First Order, the dark, oppressive interiors, and shudders. She's reminded of being strapped to a table with a monster in black looming over her and threatening to take whatever he wants.

 _"Does it hurt?"_  The unexpected question makes her pause and meet his stare with wide eyes. He's looking at her hand again.

When she nods, he swallows hard and nods back.

 _"Careful."_ It's abrasive just looking at him, let alone having those scorching eyes trained on her. Their black depths threaten to suck her in. _"He'll sense your weakness, too. And when he does-"_

"You're wrong! You have no idea who Luke Skywalker is!"

 _"I know more than most,"_ he counters, ocean breeze tousling his hair and the black robe around his legs. Rey squeezes her wounded hand tight, squinting at his silhouette against the low sun. Luke's faint voice calls out to her from far away.  _"Sleep with one eye open, or you might not wake up in the morning."_

Rey turns, not wanting to believe him.

A day later, she learns the truth and has no choice in the matter.

*

Becoming Supreme Leader both frightens and excites Ben. But mostly excites.

Mostly makes him feel like his blood is on  _fire_ in his veins, like he's more alive than he's ever been and he ever will be. Like he was born for this. He will die as the Supreme Leader of the First Order, or at least he hopes he will. He hopes his grandfather will be watching when that day comes.

The inheritance of power is dizzying and so overwhelming that he hasn't fully grasped what it means to be the sole owner of what Snoke left behind. The army, the ships, the weapons, the First Order, all of it. Snoke was untouchable, often unseeable, and now everything he was is what Ben is. Well, not everything.

If Snoke could see him now, Ben wonders what he would say. The weakness he claimed he saw in Ben's heart, the sentiment; he wants to grab Snoke by the throat and shove in his face that that "weakness" is what split him open like a ripe fruit under a kitchen knife. Ever since leaving the Jedi camp, there has been a desire within Ben to silence something utterly unbearable in the dark reaches of his mind. It had never occurred to him that something might be Snoke.

Being a leader isn't new - commanding squads is second nature, and he has the Knights of Ren - but **_Supreme Leader_**. When the title falls from General Hux's lips to get his attention, to seek orders after finding the Resistance base devoid of life, it sends a shiver across his flesh. The intoxicating weight it carries makes him want to kill something.

Rey is fleeing, but what else is new. What remains of the Resistance is fleeing with her, clinging to her like her existence itself will be enough. It takes more than one powerful person to defeat an entire army. Say what they will about hope, but wars are won with troops, firepower, and raw strength. Ben will personally teach the Resistance that. He will teach Rey that, and if he can't then he will kill her, if he has to.

Hux gazes at him now dripping with tension. Reluctant respect and pure, unbridled hatred meet in the middle, shake hands, and agree to co-exist. That's all Ben needs. If he follows orders, that's all Ben needs. So when Hux hesitates, gritting his teeth when he gets the order to let the Resistance escape, Ben stares him down until he nods and decides not to call it insubordination. With Phasma gone, he needs to keep as many useful tools left in working order.

"Yes, Supreme Leader. I will... tell our scouts to fall back. From the entire Resistance, which was right in front of our noses. And probably still within range as we speak," Hux mutters with no effort to conceal his sarcastic disdain. Ben can't care less, because that obedience, no matter how much Hux might want to ring his neck where he stands, is all he needs.

"Escape is impossible," he states, less to reassure Hux and more to demonstrate supremacy. "I have a channel for tracking their every move."

That channel goes by the name of Rey and makes something in his chest burn at the thought of it. He won't deny it hurt when she turned on him. It hurt, but not enough to kill, just enough to wound. Ben can deal with wounds; he has for years. Like the scars he's received, he leaves them alone, doesn't think about where they came from, and it's like they're not even there. If anything, they strengthen him.

So, when he's been shuttled back to what remains of the Supremacy, and the rest of his army is regrouping on Crait, he finds a quiet space alone and reaches. It's a struggle to focus at this point in time, but he forces himself to reach as hard as he can. Predictably, his recipient resists.

"You know that will change nothing," he tells her.

He doesn't know if she's alone or not. A part of him doesn't care. There is a sensation entirely different than the previous instances in this attempt to bridge. He can see her, but her form is blurry like she's floating underwater in a murky bog. The kind of blur that tears yet to fall misshape the world with.

Rey is sitting with her eyes locked onto something that isn't him, unfocused like that something is hopelessly beyond reach. It's the faraway look of a passenger in space staring out a nearby window and watching the stars shoot by. There is no sign that she hears him other than a twitch of her eyelids.

"They'll all die. You'll die with them. You should have-" He tries to keep his voice even and strong, but he fails, and it cracks.

Something in his chest _burns_. He suspects it's the wound he's supposed to be ignoring. If that is the case then looking at Rey now is like hitting that wound, not ignoring it. Rey joins in the beating when her eyes flick up to his. They hold the same sorrow they did back in the throne room, when he extended a hand and she begged him to stop.

 _"Ben,"_ she says.

Gradually, her image solidifies until he can see the knot between her eyebrows, the strong cut of her jaw, a familiar vulnerability in her gaze.

_"Does it hurt?"_

When he nods, she swallows hard and nods back.

It's solid and clear, even through the tears that roll from his eyes and drip from his chin.


	2. Are You?

The next time he sees her is of her own accord, much to Ben's surprise.

Ben wonders if it's fate, if the universe foretold their connection before the dawn of time, or if they're both just too stupid and lonely to know when to call it quits. He thought Rey would be wiser, that she would shun him, shut him out, or try to at least, but he's wrong. It turns out she's just as stupid and lonely as she ever was and probably ever will be.

Her stupidity and loneliness blindside him when he's laying in bed, shirtless and half-asleep. Suddenly, all sound terminates, and if he didn't know better he'd think it was a dream. But even with his eyes shut, she's clearly visible beside him on the black sheets of his bunk. The way her eyes widen might be comical if her untimely appearance didn't send Ben's heart into overdrive, his body kick-starting into a combat state reserved catching sneak attacks.

He has her by the throat before he can stop, staring down at her in the darkness. She grimaces, huffs out a labored breath, and latches onto his wrist.

 _"You're hurting me,"_ she gasps, gripping his wrist until she's hurting him, too. _"Ben..."_

It's so awful when she says that. He thinks about cutting out her tongue so she can never say it again, because the sound of it makes him want to drop everything and run to her.

Easing his grip on her neck doesn't do him any favors. Rey still squeezes his wrist until he feels his bones creak, even after he's released her throat and is leaning back onto an elbow.

"What are you doing here?"

It's a good question. Ben is the new Supreme Leader of the First Order and Rey is the new Jedi savior of the Resistance, so what  _are_ they doing here? Why is Rey pressed into his bed sheets in the dark, flushed with distress and embarrassment in equal measure, fingers wrapped around his wrist like she's drowning?

" _Your mother is dead."_

Ben stares down at her and ignores the dizzying sensation of his stomach dropping. At some point - he can't be sure - her hand has slid from his wrist to his palm.

 _"She's dead,"_ Rey repeats after seconds of numb silence, as if he didn't hear her, as if his hands were pressed to his ears instead of limply held in her own. Slowly, he nods.

"I see."

There is nothing more to say.

There are vivid flashes of his mother's face, of her elegance, her power. He can remember clear as day being cradled in her arms as a child. The smell of her, the rough delicacy of her hands, the kindness in her deep eyes. The love she shared with his father. He remembers it all.

He can remember, but there is nothing he can say. Not anymore.

 _"No one really knows why... Some say she just went peacefully in her sleep."_ Rey struggles to focus, blinking hard. She did always have that nasty habit of searching for her parents, in Han, in Luke, and in Leia. _"I thought you deserved to know."_

Ben doesn't say anything, because there is nothing to say. Any words to mourn his mother's passing have died long ago, swallowed up by darkness. Even if they weren't, he doesn't feel it's his place, though he is her son. There's a disconnect between them, somewhere between her kissing him goodnight to shipping him off alone so she could dedicate herself fully to her work, an impassable and now impossible rift, that leaves him empty and mute.

 _"Do you even care?"_ Rey whispers in the wake of his blank acceptance, voice catching and breaking around the words, like she can't believe it.

Ben stares back in silence.

She lies on his bed and grits her teeth as tears slip from the corners of her eyes and soak into his pillow until she's openly bawling. There is nothing he can say and even less he can do, so Ben lowers himself back onto his pillow and watches her cry, fearing her grip is going to crush his hand.

 _"She's dead, you idiot...!"_ Her face is bright red, eyes a narrow squint. If Ben believed it himself, he would tell her that everything will be okay, but he can't bring himself to lie. Not to Rey; not right now.

"All things have to die," he says. "It's natural. One day, you'll die. And I'll die."

His blunt words only make her cry even harder.

*

Rey practices with her quarterstaff now that Luke's lightsaber is broken, in the downtime between getting hounded by Poe with questions and smothered by Finn with concern.

It reminds her of quiet mornings on Ahch-to when she would take the saber out to the cliffs and practice while Luke was asleep. A few times, she caught him watching, clutching his robes in the ocean breeze, eyes full of melancholy and nostalgia, but she never called him out on it. She just kept practicing and pretending she didn't know he was there.

The planet the Resistance has fled to is nothing like Luke's island. This land is dry and flat with rolling plains of yellow grass and a bright relentless sun shining down on it. The Millennium Falcon is tucked back near a group of trees, as if that cluster of thin white bark will protect them if the First Order decides to track them down and snuff them out. It's fine; they won't stay for long. They never do.

"How ya holding up?" Finn asks for the fifth time since she woke that morning.

"Perfect." She flashes a smile that's half a mask and half genuine appreciation for how much he cares.

He smiles back from his spot on the grass near her. She would prefer to train alone any day, but if Finn desires otherwise, reminders of quiet Ahch-to mornings can be damned.

Finn is something more than quiet. Finn is solace and understanding, raw companionship and camaraderie. Finn has a hug she could stay in forever, because it makes her feel at home. Sometimes, mostly on long, restless nights, she finds herself wondering if embracing Ben Solo would be anything like home, or just a cold foreign mockery of artificial comfort.

"I could spar with you if you want."

She glances down at that suggestion with a smirk.

"Dunno... Rose will come for my throat if I hurt you too badly."

"Oh, please. I could take you on, Jedi Master."

"In your dreams, maybe."

Finn scoffs in such an exaggerated way that pulls a loud, ugly laugh from her. When she bends over to catch her breath, he says something else, but his voice is oddly muted now like he's trying to speak from a mile away.

"What's wrong? Sore from a little training? Looks like the 'Jedi Master's' not so great after all," Finn teases through muffled air. If she wasn't so distracted, Rey would laugh or give a comeback or do anything other than stare at the black of Kylo Ren's boots on the grass in front of her.

"Really...?"

"Rey? Seriously, are you alright?"

"Perfect," she forces out, straightening and looking Ben in the eye, who tilts his head inquisitively.

 _"Perfect?"_ he murmurs.

He can't see her surroundings, only her. She glances away and starts to pace, wondering whether she should try and inform Finn or just pretend she's not crazy until the Force disconnects them. Meanwhile, Ben eyes her up and down - she can feel it.

_"You're not alone."_

It's muttered so softly, yet is so charged. Most things with Ben are charged, but not to this extent. Never this jealous and weighted.

"I'm fine," Rey asserts.

She's not sure who she's speaking to anymore, but it's Ben she's looking at and Ben she lashes out towards, swinging her staff right at his face. That betrayed expression makes her feel guilty. It's satisfying when surprise takes its place.

Finn says something she can't hear as she follows Ben movements, advancing as he backpedals. He must bump into something in the room he's in - maybe his bedroom, maybe a command room - because he glances over his shoulder, hand groping at empty air near his waist. Taking full advantage, Rey strikes the back of knee, connecting or at least through their bond. To any onlooker, the end of her staff stops against thin air.

It's not enough to take him down. When he looks up from his leg, that betrayed expression is back in full force, and Rey can't stand it. She reaches out to grab his face, as if she can pull his emotions away. Instinctively, he recoils, a thrust from his palm sending her stumbling back, then strafes slowly around her like he's facing a wild animal.

The only thing she connects with when she spins to face him with another strike is Finn, who catches her in waiting arms and keeps her trapped there.

"Rey! Can you hear me?! Rey!"

Finn's arms are tight around her, to the point where she can't lean back to look into his face. Her staff slips from her hand and thuds against the grass at their feet.

"Snap out of it. You're seeing things that aren't there!" She goes limp against Finn, letting him hold her, panting over his shoulder, and staring hard at Ben Solo.

Ben has stopped moving as well. It must be obvious to him from the way her arms are draped over Finn's shoulders that she's embracing someone in front of him. It must be obvious, because his eyes harden and his jaw clenches as he stares.

"I'm sorry," she breathes, to both of them, for entirely different reasons. "I'm fine."

When they answer her, it is, seemingly against all odds, at the same, in the same tone, and using the exact same words.

_"Are you?"_

She doesn't have an answer for either one.

*

Hugging Ben isn't like hugging Finn. Rey learns this days later, after Leia's burial ceremony.

The general has been cremated, her ashes scattered among the stars before the watchful eyes of the Resistance. Rey doesn't shed a tear, shoulders squared, back straight, though a lump has been lodged in her throat since assembling.

Everyone looks to her like she is a hero, like they want her to give a speech about the importance of hope, but she knows if she opens her mouth to say even a single word, that lump in her throat will give way to a flood.

It's more than she can stomach, so she takes an early leave to the empty bunkroom in the Falcon and closes the door. Leia might be watching over her, floating out there among the stars, just like Ben has told her he desires sometimes, but Rey's loneliness is overwhelming.

It prompts her to call him, but the two of them usually bridge when either one, or both, is quiet, relaxed, or thoughtful. And Rey is anything but that now, leaning against a wall, carding a hand over the buns in her hair, and not caring if her fingers snag or mess them up.

Minutes pass. An hour passes.

She has slumped down to sit against the wall, her knees to her chest, still in the elegant black robes she had worn to the funeral. It's nice to be undisturbed, no knocks on the door to check if she's okay, but at the same time it isolates her even further. Perhaps the only good thing about it is that time provides the opportunity to relax, to calm her racing heart and hurried breath, until she reaches and reaches and reaches and, finally, she connects.

He feels a million miles away, though he is standing right near her bunk, doned in his usual attire. He looks so foreign, though they are wearing the same shade of black. She can only imagine how jarring it is from his perspective to see her on the floor, eyes full of tears, curled up against the wall like a child. It must be even more jarring than she thinks: within a second of bonding, his brow furrows and his lips silently part.

"She's really gone now," she breaks the silence, unashamed of how weak she sounds, how weak she looks in front of him. They're well acquainted with each other's weaknesses by now. "I really have nothing left."

It's not true, but it feels like it is, and Rey knows Ben will understand that. He's perhaps the only one in her life who can understand that completely.

_"So it's over. It hurts more to have something and lose it than to have never had it at all, huh? Like your parents. Your real parents. They never felt like this, did they?"_

"It's unbearable, Ben..."

_"I know."_

He shouldn't be this gentle and soft-spoken, not after Rey attacked him impulsively in the training field. He had just looked so rejected then, like the mere thought of her spending time alone with someone else hurt him. He'd never been so possessive before, never of her. Now that she thinks back on it, though, she has a feeling what would make him act possessive. It's the same reason she is on the floor and feels like there's a hole in her chest.

"You mourn her." The moment he averts his gaze is when she knows she's hit the issue head-on. "You feel empty, too."

 _"I feel nothing,"_ he says to the wall. His hands are clenched tight behind his back. _"Not anymore. You're the one who has nothing left. If anything, I am free."_

In a horrifying rush, the amount of suffering Ben has endured since she informed him of his mother's death is palpable. It shocks her. When she lied there on his bed in the Supremacy, he showed no emotion and said very little, but Ben Solo is nothing if not emotional. Even his enemies know that. She should have  _known_ that.

The weight of finally being alone in the universe is threatening to crush him while he is doing everything he can to try and pretend that it isn't.

Spurned by heartache, Rey stands, the long folds of her black robe tumbling down her legs and brushing at her ankle-high boots. Ben's eyes dart to her. He thinks she looks beautiful like this, though he would never say it. He doesn't really need to. A few steps and they're as close as they stood in the elevator of the Supremacy, when she had to tilt her head back just to look him in the eye.

"We both have nothing left." He gazes back, guarded, overwhelmed, and glossy-eyed. "Truly, nothing. No one. It's so horrible, Ben..."

Unlike their one-sided sparring match, this time when she reaches out, she connects with something solid, and he doesn't move away. Her palm smooths and flattens over his cheek. It's soft and warm.

 _"You're wrong."_ Rey cups his other cheek and cradles his distressed face. _"I'm not like you."_

It's the most ridiculous denial she's ever heard come from his mouth. It oozes of such sorrow and concealed pain that she trails her hands down from his cheeks to his neck, then drapes her arms over his shoulders. His impressive height forces her to her tip-toes, but she doesn't mind. Ben's body is stiffer than a droid against her, as if the most minuscule movement will ruin everything.

Stretching up, she tucks her face against his jaw, his dark hair brushing her forehead, and takes in a deep breath that she sighs out against his collar. They remain this way for a full minute at least until, slowly, hesitantly, Ben's right arm inches up to press a forearm against her lower back. The left follows shortly after.

Hugging Ben isn't like hugging Finn. If hugging Finn is home, then hugging Ben is the universe. Hugging Ben is feeling at peace with existence itself. It's not just comfort; it's a deep-seated, full-bodied tranquility. It's a promise and a plea all at once. A wish and a longing, a push and a pull. The only word she can find for it is balance.

"Do you feel it, too?" she murmurs against Ben's skin. "That we both have nothing yet have all we need?" It's a vague question she fears he won't understand, but Ben inhales deeply and pulls her in closer.

 _"I don't know,"_ he breathes near her ear. _"I don't know... If you tell me where you are, I won't bring the fleet. No one will know. Rey. I promise you."_

The proposal makes her heart race, her very soul ache to be near him in person. She pictures Ben leaving the First Order and coming to her alone, if he can get past the Resistance that is. If he can't, she can imagine him fighting his way through until he gets to what he came for.

He would end up asking her to join him again. This time she isn't sure if she'll be able to say no. Everything Leia died fighting against is everything Ben believes in. Telling him where she is now would mean never coming back.

Firm muscles shift under her fingertips when she retracts her arms. Ben leans back, hands in a butterfly grip on her waist, but he's mistaken in thinking she's trying to pull away. Instead, she weaves her arms around his midsection now instead of his neck, pressing their chests together in an effort to get their hearts closer. Once again, Ben understands without explanation and embraces her even tighter in return.

Bottling rash desires, she closes her eyes and revels in their peace and balance. His arms are thick from years of fighting, killing, and struggling to survive. His chest is broad and warm. When he trembles against her, stuttered breath gracing the tip of her ear, it's not surprising. He is nothing if not emotional.

She doesn't ponder what he's crying for - for her, for his mother, for himself. For the second time she has rejected him. The importance is not in why, but in the fact that he still feels conflicted enough to cry at all.

As they cling to each other, desperate to not be alone, desperate to have something despite the universe snatching everything away, Rey whispers against his neck that his mother will always be with him. Ben shivers and holds her long enough for her arms to get sore and slide down to rest around his waist.

The black sleeves of her robe melt into the black of his uniform until, before long, she can't tell the difference between them. His heart beats steady against her own until those, too, blend into one.


End file.
